Sunday, July 31, 2016

For some odd reason, there are no interesting thoughts in my head this morning. I've had my 2 cups of tea and a nice big slice of Apple Fritter bread with lots of butter. So, I should be adequately awake. But, I am experiencing an abnormal absence of thoughts to share. I do, however, have a card to share:

Saturday, July 30, 2016

My "old" high school librarian, back in the late 60's early 70's, will turn 80 in August, and his family has organized a card shower for him. I wonder how many cards he will receive. This is my contribution.

The sentiment is a CTMH stamp and the numbers and letters are cricut cuts from the CTMH Art Philosophy Cartridge.

Here's a photo of just some of the mess, dumped out on my sofa. I spent the last 3 evenings, while watching TV, untangling, unwinding, winding, sorting and discovering treasures. My husband, when seeing the empty sofa this morning, remarked that he didn't think he'd ever see that sofa again.
Check out my ribbon stash now....

The 2 plastic containers on each side fit perfectly inside the drawers for storage.

And all the small pieces, not long enough to wrap around a card, are in my handy ribbon canister.

It sits close to my work area and is my first stop when looking for a ribbon for a card.

I am so pleased with the results, I'm "thinking" of tackling my stash of yarn.

Thursday, July 28, 2016

This was the first time I used this Bunch of Love Stamp. I inked it up and stamped it on a piece of scrap white cs to see how it would look, before stamping it on the piece I planned to use for the card. Then I colored the sample before doing the actual coloring on the card to make sure I liked the colors I was using together. The birthday sentiment is also from the Bunch of Love Set, bent so it fits perfectly on the banner. The frame I used was a cut from the CTMH Artistry Cricut Cartridge (p.14). I thought the Belini colored skittles blended perfectly. And the ribbon came from my very disorganized ribbon stash.

(My new project is to correct that. I thought I'd do it while we watched TV last evening, but it was a bigger job than I imagined. Right now the sofa is still covered in ribbons. But, I do have a plan.)

The sample image I had

stamped and colored ended up on the second card, along with the pieces of ribbon I trimmed off the bow.

One of my blogging friends, Tracey Pierce, posted a card that she was entering in a CTMH challenge, Between the Folds Challenge #26B, which was new to me. It's always fun to play in new challenges. I made the first card to enter in this week's Creative Cuts Challenge.

Additional Challenges:

4 Crafty Chicks Challenge #309- Favorite designer (can be stamps, papers, dies, an actual company) - Mine would be CTMH papers and stamps. And the Stampin Up embossing folder that I used on both cards, is my all time favorite, most used, embossing folder!

As You Like It Challenge - Favorite Papers and Why (CTMH - I love their coordinating double sided papers. It takes the guesswork out of matching shades and colors.)

There are lots of various sizes of this CTMH Hopscotch paper remaining in the paper pack. The numbered paper strip is a leftover piece from another card. I only had a small piece of sunset, but enough to stamp just the fox. Then I used another very small piece of the glacier to stamp the banner. The orange punched strip was just wide enough to get into the punch. And I even found a skinny strip of flaxen cs for underneath. The colonial white piece was a bit sticky and dirty on
one side from laying around on my messy table. But, that didn't matter
because the other side was clean.

Tuesday, July 26, 2016

This week I made 2 cards using the sketch from the Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge. Why 2? Well, I wanted to use a cut from the CTMH Artistry Cartridge and wasn't sure of the size. So, I cut 2. One thing led to another and now I am 2 cards closer to having my Christmas Cards finished.

(With the exception of Gold Wink of Stella in the flower centers, all products used for both cards are by Close to My Heart,)

Monday, July 25, 2016

Yesterday, I posted 3 cards I made while clearing unfinished items from my craft table. I saved one digi image (printed for Catch the Bug Christmas in July Challenge but never used) for today's Mojo Monday card, hoping it would work with the sketch. Luckily it did!

Sunday, July 24, 2016

Today I decided to clear some of the bits and pieces off my craft area. Digis I printed, colored and abandoned; half finished card fronts; those oopsies that needed some cosmetic surgery; I'm sure you get the picture. The simplest thing would be to scoop it all into the trash. But that would be contrary to the whole philosophy behind this blog. Frugal cardmaker that I am, not much hits the circular file.

Last week I mixed some of my own paint to make a tag for the challenge at A Day for Daisies. I was going to use a stencil to create the background. I tried making one stenciled flower on a bit paper first before applying the paint directly onto the tag I had cut. It turned out okay, so I started on the tag. After I finished the tag, I took the remainder of the paint and brushed it onto a piece of scrap paper. No sense wasting it.

Here's how I cleaned the sample stenciled flower and strip of leftover painted paper off the table.

And I had just enough ribbon on the roll to add a bow.

Next I got to work on the abandoned digis, both Bugaboo images I had printed, colored and never used.

The first image was Rudolph Presents, currently a freebie at Bugaboo stamps, and perfect for the pile of cards I'll be mailing to Send a Smile 4 Kids.

The second image that now has a home on this summertime birthday card is Beach Monkey Inner Tube, also a current freebie.

With the orange arrows secured by a brad, you can point them to whatever number, or numbers represent the recipients age.

Here is the photo inspiration for the current challenge at Catch the Bug where I'll be entering this card.

Saturday, July 23, 2016

We sat through one ball game last evening and 2 more today. My grandson's team won 1 and lost 2 of the games. We are still waiting to hear if they've been knocked out of this tournament or if they have another game tomorrow.

The CTMH Have a Happy Day Stamp Set was on the top of the pile, so I used it to make background paper and a sentiment label in the required colors, Crystal Blue, Sorbet, Canary and White Daisy. Then I added some sequins, glitter trim and a dragonfly brad, which just happened to match perfectly.

Thursday, July 21, 2016

His room is cluttered with them, from pictures, and games to stuffed versions and even his sheets and comforter. When he is here, either we are making a Minion or something that has to do with soccer, his second love. When I saw this digi image from Knitty Kitty Digis on my friend's blog, (I won't mention names but you know who you are.) I just had to have it.

The "One in a minion!" sentiment comes with the digi.

The minion kitty was colored with markers. The black goggle band has a coating of clear Wink of Stella. And the goggle 'glass' was made shiny with a layer of CTMH Liquid Glass.

The FRIEND stamp and background stamps used on the gray and tan kitties are CTMH.

As You Like It Challenge - Your Trademark Style (I love to emboss, especially dp. You'll find embossing on most of my cards. I love the added texture and dimension it gives.)

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We made 3 cards at Joyce's CTMH card class yesterday.

You should have heard the grousing when we had to separate the strands of the bakers twine for the bike card and then thread them through a hole in the front of the card and secure them on the back. There were even a few threats made, something about slashed tires after church on Sunday.

Shhh... Don't tell. I kind of cheated when it came to fussy cutting the tiny areas between the stems and leaves. Rather than getting out the exacto knife, I got out a black marker. I knew I was going to be mounting it on black cs, so I just colored those sections black instead of removing them to let the black show through.

Monday, July 18, 2016

For today's Mojo Monday Sketch Challenge card, I went to an old pack of CTMH paper, knowing it would coordinate without having to search for anything else. One of the papers even had this colorful owl image, just waiting to be fussy cut and used on a card.

She has the photo watermarked, so I hope she doesn't mind that I posted it here. Can you see why I wanted to CASE it?

My first attempt didn't end up looking like Tanja's tag at all.

Sure, it was blue, had velum, and a crinkly ribbon, but really looked nothing like Tanja's.

Unhappy with my results, I hopped back over to read Tanja's blog and then went back to work. Not having the same products in my stash that she used, I made some substitutions and am much more satisfied with this tag.

The image was watercolored and fussycut; the background was stenciled with an ink mixture made from powdered pigments and CTMH pearl Creat-a-Shade paint; after drying it was debossed and a bit more color added with a pouncer; the velum spray is a cricut cut from the CTMH Artistry cartridge; and the CTMH color ready ribbon, which turned my fingers a lovely shade of denim and crystal blue, was spritzed, crumpled, clipped and dried before adding.

Boy, was this out of my wheel house!

Now I have a lot of stuff to put away and these fingers will definitely need some Oxiclean!